Welcome to Thursday, May 29, 2025, and National Biscuit Day (didn’t we just have a similar day?) Southern style biscuits (not the British style, which are “cookies” to us) are, as I say constantly, America’s best indigenous breadstuff. Here’s a plate, which would be much improved with sausage gravy or butter and homemade preserves.
It’s also Ascension, International Coq Au Vin Day, and End of the Middle Ages Day (“Many historians consider May 29, 1453, to be the date on which the Middle Ages ended. It was on this date that Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire, fell to the Ottoman Empire, after being under siege for almost two months”).
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the May 29 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*Trump and Netanyahu are apparently disagreeing about what to do about Iran. While Trump continues to press for a deal to curb nuclear weapons, Israel may be making plans to strike Iranian sites involved in enriching uranium and making bombs.
As the Trump administration tries to negotiate a nuclear deal with Iran, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has been threatening to upend the talks by striking Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facilities, according to officials briefed on the situation.
The clash over how best to ensure that Iran cannot produce a nuclear weapon has led to at least one tense phone call between President Trump and Mr. Netanyahu and a flurry of meetings in recent days between top administration officials and senior Israeli officials.
Mr. Trump said on Sunday that there could be “something good” coming about his effort to limit Iran’s nuclear program in the “next two days.”
Others familiar with the negotiations said that at best there would be a declaration of some common principles. The details under discussion remain closely held and would likely only set the stage for further negotiations, starting with whether Iran could continue to enrich uranium at any level, and how it would dilute its stockpiles of near-bomb-grade fuel or ship them out of the country.
The New York Times reported in April that Israel had planned to strike Iranian nuclear sites as soon as this month but was waved off by Mr. Trump, who wanted to keep negotiating with Tehran. Mr. Netanyahu, however, has continued to press for military action without U.S. assistance.
Israel is not a participant in the negotiations between the United States and Iran. At the core of the tension between Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Trump is their differing views of how best to exploit a moment of Iranian weakness.
In October, Israel destroyed key elements of Iran’s strategic air defense system, which helped to protect the country’s nuclear facilities. That would enable Israeli aircraft to approach Iran’s borders without fear of being targeted.
I think that bombing Iran’s nuclear sites is an existential necessity for Israel, as one bomb in Israel would pretty much wipe out the whole country, and Iran has said it won’t be hesitant to do that. And don’t think that Iran wouldn’t, even though the Iranian people probably wouldn’t want more war. A destroyed Israel can’t retaliate. But if Israel bombs Iran’s nuclear facilities, the U.S. may decide not to sell weapons to Israel. What with Trump being unpredictable. there’s no telling what will happen–either whether there’s a bombing and, if so, how the U.S. responds.
*The WSJ reports that North Korea is getting cash from Americans through a scam involving unwitting American “influencers” who funnel money to North Koreans living abroad. They use the story of Christina, a Tik Tok “influencer”
Chapman was one of an estimated several dozen “laptop farmers” that have popped up across the U.S. as part of a scam to infiltrate American companies and earn money for cash-strapped North Korea. People like Chapman typically operate dozens of laptops meant to be used by legitimate remote workers living in the U.S.
What the employers—and often the farmers themselves—don’t realize is that the workers are North Koreans living abroad but using stolen U.S. identities. Once they get a job, they coordinate with someone like Chapman who can provide some American cover—accepting deliveries of the computer, setting up the online connections and helping facilitate paychecks. Meanwhile the North Koreans log into the laptops from overseas every day through remote-access software.
Chapman fell into her role after she got a request on LinkedIn to “be the U.S. face” for a company that got jobs for overseas IT workers, according to court documents. There’s no indication that she knew she was working with North Koreans.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation says the scam more broadly involves thousands of North Korean workers and brings hundreds of millions of dollars a year to the country. “That’s a material percentage of their economy,” said Gregory Austin, a section chief with the FBI.
Besides spying, they can also steal identities, and can get a lot of money. Ultimately, of course, the beneficiary is the DPRK, the world’s most oppressive regime.
*In another move that’s likely to be unconstitutional, the Trump administration has paused issuing new student visas.
The document was first reported by Politico. A senior State Department official confirmed to The Post the accuracy of the cable on the suspension of visa processing.
The Trump administration has led an unyielding battle against universities that it alleges allow antisemitism, most recently attempting to bar Harvard from hosting international students and directing federal agencies to cancel or redirect contracts with the Ivy League school. The government also has orchestrated a crackdown on foreign national students who have expressed pro-Palestinian political beliefs, often citing social media posts and campus protests as grounds for detaining them and revoking their legal status.
Much of these efforts — like Harvard’s certification to admit foreign students and students’ deportations — are mired in legal fights. But the administration has pressed forward to target visa processes.
Homeland Security last month, citing White House executive orders aimed at addressing antisemitism, said it will begin screening noncitizens’ social media accounts for antisemitic content as reason to deny visa and green-card applications — including visa applications from foreign students. The policy change drew backlash from immigration-law and free-speech experts who said it could violate people’s First Amendment rights; the author of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism recently told NPR that the White House has abused the term.
I doubt that this will be found legal, and it’s also inimical to the welfare of the universities and the U.S., as many foreign students stay and enrich the country, and, as I’ve said before, it’s a good thing for the U.S. to help out students from other countries who may go home and enrich their own lands. Note that “antisemitic content” is the main disqualifying feature, which brings up the First Amendment issue noted above.
*The Washington Free Beacon (who else would do this?) reports the names, photos, and information about the students arrested for storming the Columbia University Library three weeks ago. It’s interesting to see who they are and what their background—including their majors—is:
Below are the names of the individuals arrested on May 7. All but one was charged with criminal trespassing for storming the Columbia library, while the outlier, Hamza Mankor, was charged with misconduct and threatening behavior. The vast majority were students of Columbia or its affiliates, Barnard College and Union Theological Seminary.
I count 21 people. Of these, only one appears to be a scientist (partly majoring in evolutionary biology!), and the rest are mostly humanities students, with many concentrating on social work, psychology, art, history, and the like. The dearth of scientists is striking but, based on my experience at Chicago, where most of the pro-Pal faculty are in the humanities, it rings true.
*Education Week and the WSJ op-ed section report on a Supreme Court decision that is watering down the First Amendment, or at least using a double standard for speech in secondary schools. Frist from EW:
Over the sharp dissent of two justices, the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to hear the case of a student who was barred by his Massachusetts middle school from wearing a T-shirt with the message, “There Are Only Two Genders.”
The court’s refusal to take up the issue offers schools no additional clarity for now on student speech that many school administrators perceive as harmful to LGBTQ+ students or other vulnerable populations.
Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., in a dissent from the denial of review that was joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, said, “This case presents an issue of great importance for our nation’s youth: whether public schools may suppress student speech either because it expresses a viewpoint that the school disfavors or because of vague concerns about the likely effect of the speech on the school atmosphere, or on students who find the speech offensive.”
The case of L.M. v. Town of Middleborough involves Liam Morrison, who was a 7th grader at Nichols Middle School in April 2023 when he wore the “Two Genders” shirt—a message he and his father viewed not as targeting any group, but as a comment on the debate over gender identity, according to court papers.
School administrators, citing concerns for several transgender or gender nonconforming students at the school, invoked a provision of the student dress code that barred “hate speech or imagery that target[s] groups based on race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, religious affiliation, or any other classification.”
Morrison was not disciplined, but his father came to school to take him home when he refused to remove the T-shirt. Later, the father told administrators that the shirt merely stated his son’s view “on a subject that has become a political hot topic.” The student was later barred from wearing the shirt with the words “Only Two” covered with a piece of tape with the word “Censored” written with a marker.
Morrison sued under the First Amendment, and you might think they had a case based on how speech in secondary schools is treated (wearing slogans can be banned). But, according to the WSJ, ideological speech was permitted at Nichols Middle School:
Yet [the school] encouraged others to wear “Pride gear to celebrate Pride Month.
But that could offend students who, on religious grounds, are offended by homosexuality. Further, the “two genders” clearly means “two sexes”, and stating that there are two sexes, and only two, happens to be a biological fact. (If the student really meant “sociosexual role” for gender, that would be different, but I suspect that he didn’t.) And I’m sure that a tee-shirt that read “there are only two sexes” would also be banned. A bit of law from the WSJ:
. . .The touchstone case is Tinker (1969), when the High Court upheld the right of public-school students to wear black armbands to protest the Vietnam War. Nevertheless, the First Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against L. M., saying schools may ban passive speech if the message is “reasonably interpreted” to “demean” anybody’s “characteristics of personal identity,” and if it’s “reasonably forecasted to poison the educational atmosphere due to its serious negative psychological impact,” leading to “substantial disruption.”
There’s a tension between a student’s free speech and a duty to maintain an educational environment, and the First Circuit emphasized that everyone seemed to agree that schools could ban t-shirts printed with slurs: “L.M. conceded that a school could bar a shirt displaying the message ‘All Trans Kids Are Retarded.’”
Yet Justice Alito says the First Circuit’s approach “cannot be squared with Tinker,” in part because the First Circuit simply ratified the views of school officials. The judges first deferred to administrators that the boy’s shirt could be reasonably read as demeaning. Then Justice Alito says the judges deferred to the school’s “speculation about the likely effects of the t-shirts on students—even though L. M.’s speech resulted in no actual disruptions.”
*Speaking of sex, over at Colin Wright’s Substack “Reality’s last stand,” Aaron Kimberley has a somewhat surprising piece called “Sex and violence: What the data on trans offenders really show.” The gist of the piece can be summarized in these plots, which the article explains:
This article explores Canadian data from Correctional Service Canada, individual studies, and large community-based surveys on sexual violence, analyzing conviction and victimization rates across sex and gender identity.
. . . . The charts below visualize conviction profiles based on Correctional Service Canada reports, breaking down assault and sexual assault convictions of women, men, transmen (female), and transwomen (male). For context, the first chart presents the overall proportion of inmates: men make up the vast majority (94 percent) of the incarcerated population, and among the “gender diverse” group, 61.6 percent were transwomen. Trans-identified inmates overall represent approximately 1 percent of the inmate population.
The far higher proportion of male than female inmates is no surprise: men always commit more crimes than women, and part of the reason is likely biology: men take more risks and are more violent. But it’s the second chart that’s surprising:
This chart shows the conviction profiles of inmates in Canadian federal custody, broken down by group. Each bar represents the percentage of individuals within that group who were convicted of a given type of offense—not their share of total convictions across all inmates.
For example, if the bar for men convicted of assault is slightly above 10 percent, that means more than one in ten male inmates had at least one assault conviction. It does not mean men committed 10 percent of all assault crimes.
The sexual assault chart showing a much higher rate of offenses among transwomen (men who identify as women) and biological men among women or transmen is no surprise, as women or transmen (women who identify as men) commit barely any sexual assaults compared to men. What’s surprising to me is that transwomen on average are convicted of sexual assault a lot more often than are cis-men, and far, far more often than bioogical women than women, who don’t even show up on the graph. (There are zero biological women or transmen who commited sexual assault.) But why the higher rate in transwomen? Kimberly’s explanation:
The divergence in sexual assault convictions is especially significant when viewed through the lens of biological sex. None of the women nor transmen in the dataset had been convicted of sexual assault. By contrast, 16.9 percent of male inmates and an alarming 31 percent of transwomen had such convictions.
Of those transwomen with sexual assault convictions, 94 percent committed the offenses prior to identifying as transwomen, and 44 percent had prior convictions for sexual offenses. More than half (55 percent) of the victims were women. These patterns strongly suggest that some high-risk male sexual offenders are exploiting gender self-identification policies to gain access to women’s facilities.
This interpretation aligns with criminologist Dr. Jo Phoenix’s analysis of the same dataset and is further supported by international data compiled by Clare B. Dimyon, showing comparable trends in the UK, Australia, and the United States. The concern is not local—it’s universal.
. . .These findings also present a significant challenge to the common belief that circulating testosterone levels is the primary driver of aggressive or sexual behavior. If sexual violence were chiefly caused by elevated testosterone levels, we would expect transmen—females taking exogenous testosterone—to exhibit higher rates of sexual offenses than females in general. Yet none were convicted of such offenses. Conversely, if testosterone suppression reduced the risk of sexual violence, we would expect transwomen with lowered testosterone to offend at lower rates than biological males—but the opposite appears true.
Unless we assume that prenatal exposure to testosterone is solely responsible for these outcomes, the data strongly suggest that sexual violence is not primarily hormone-dependent. Instead, the evidence points to a clear, persistent pattern grounded in biological sex, not identity or current hormone status.
That seems to make sense, and such attempts by biological men to get into women’s prisons may work in Canada, but in the UK you now can’t get into a women’s prison simply by presenting a gender-change certificate.
The other striking feature here is the much higher rate of assault convictions among transmen (biological women) than among members of any other group, especially cis biological women and both cis men and transmen. Kimberly explains this counterintuitive observation this way:
A more plausible explanation considers co-occurring developmental and psychiatric conditions. Gender dysphoria is often associated with elevated rates of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD)—all conditions characterized by emotional dysregulation and impaired impulse control. Some research suggests that testosterone may further impair impulse control, potentially amplifying these symptoms in transmen undergoing hormone therapy.
What we may be seeing in this data, then, is a comparison between a subgroup of females (transmen) with high rates of neurodevelopmental disorders—possibly exacerbated by testosterone—and a control group of females with lower prevalence of such conditions and no hormone treatment. Unfortunately, the dataset lacks finer diagnostic details, so this remains a hypothesis that cannot be directly tested with the available information.
That last explanation smacks somewhat of ad hoc-ism, but if the data are as Kimberley presents them, an explanation is needed. There are other provocative data in this article, but I’ll leave you to inspect them yourself One conclusion that does seem firm, though, is—at least as criminal behavior is concerned—the mantra that “transwomen are women” is false. But that also seems to hold for men and transmen.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is a bit enigmatic (I’m told that “us” means everyone in the world, individually):
Hili: Some say that everything depends on us, others say that nothing depends on us, so how is it?Andrzej: Conduct an experiment: try not to make any decisions for half a day.
Hili: Jedni mówią, że wszystko zależy od nas, inni, że nic od nas nie zależy, to jak to jest?Ja: Zrób eksperyment, spróbuj przez pół dnia nie podejmować żadnych decyzji.
*******************
From The Language Nerds:
From Things With Faces, an infant cinnamon roll:
From Now That’s Wild:
From JKR, the decision of the Supreme Court of the UK. Short and sweet:
The court order has now been issued by the UK Supreme Court. pic.twitter.com/ZBWXyTiJx2
— For Women Scotland (@ForWomenScot) May 27, 2025
Titania has tweeted again!
I’m utterly horrified to learn that only 4% of Hispanic Americans use the term “Latinx”.
The other 96% are suffering from internalised racism and need our help.
I stand with the Latinx community.
✊🏽🌮 pic.twitter.com/Gqnf2Fy3O3— Titania McGrath (@TitaniaMcGrath) May 24, 2025
An ineffably sweet tweet from Malcolm:
A mother cat comforts her kitten who has a nightmare
pic.twitter.com/WOv2Xrtd3h— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) April 15, 2025
Two from my feed. First, d*g on a plane!
I will pay anything to have him on my flight pic.twitter.com/oIjsXOjgIa
— Puppies 🐶 (@PuppiesIover) May 27, 2025
Is this fair? (Sound up.)
This is what professional bribery of a judge looks like pic.twitter.com/Cc0P2Sh6z3
— Why you should have a cat (@ShouldHaveCat) May 27, 2025
One I reposted from the Auschwitz Memorial:
French Jewish girl was gassed upon arriving at Auschwitz. She was 9 years old.
— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-05-29T09:50:40.955Z
Two from Dr. Cobb. I think the first statement violates academic freedom, not freedom of speech, as Matthew suggested:
Linda McMahon: "Universities should continue to be able to do research as long as they're abiding by the laws and in sync, I think, with the administration and what the administration is trying to accomplish."
A snarky remark:
they’re called hooves, dummy🙄
Southern style biscuits are America’s best indigenous bread creation? I disagree. That would be a fat warm corn bread muffin. February 20th is Corn Bread Muffin day
British National Biscuit Day.
The anglophone web is not the USA only!
Who invents these ridiculous days anyway? Big Biscuit…
Here you are – proper arty biscuits https://bsky.app/profile/ellamchawk.bsky.social
“One” word: hushpuppies! It matters not to me – southern style biscuits, corn bread muffins, or hushpuppies, all with butter and/or honey. They all still impress my 77 year old taste buds.
And once in a while, surprise me with some flecks of jalapeño pepper in my corn bread muffins, please.
Sorry nope: buttermilk biscuits >> cornbread muffins.
Well, taste is subjective. I too love corn muffins and their derivatives, but I still prefer biscuits. Which goes better with country ham?
I also favour biscuits obvs. But to be fair, ~everything goes better with country ham.
A thick slab of French bread slathered with garlic butter fresh from the oven.
Yes that too….there seems to be an intersection around butter.
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today. -John F. Kennedy, 35th US president (29 May 1917-1963)
“The barbarians never take the city ’til someone holds the gates open for them.”
-Christopher Hitchens
2009
(Context : religious leaders promoting “Islamophobia” as “hate speech” – see YouTube).
“He’s the one who gives his body
As a weapon of the war
And without him all this killin’ can’t go on”
“Universal Soldier”, Buffy St. Marie
My favorite JFK quote is “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable.”
The First Amendment case involving LM and the town of Middleborough is discussed in detail at the libertarian site Reason.com, with a strong argument in favor of the free speech side. What is interesting is the details of the Tinker case of the student wearing a black armband in protest of the Vietnam War. Looking at the details of that case strongly supports the free speech rights of the boy in Middleborough.
In the public school t-shirt slogan case, I immediately thought of “Tinker” (as mentioned in WSJ), our guideline for such discipline cases when I served on a local school board from 1988-1996. I believe an overarching statement in Tinker was that students do not shed their first amendment rights at the schoolhouse door (though it has been awhile and I may remember incorrectly). What I am sure of is that political speech, that of the nature of the black armband in Tinker, is particularly protected. Here in VA, the transgender issue was a major talking point for the guy who was elected governor and restrictive policies on K-12 were developed and implemented by his administration repealing the progressive transgender policies of his predecessor. Clearly gender is a political issue in VA and based on the limited information I see here, as a board member, I would vote that the student may wear the shirt. I also taught high school in the early 70’s and as a teacher, would have spent a half class period or so having a discussion of the issue if students were interested…it is always possible that what is a big deal issue to adults is a non-issue to the kids.
What’s running afoul here is “schools may ban passive speech if the message is … reasonably forecasted to poison the educational atmosphere due to its serious negative psychological impact,” leading to “substantial disruption.”
Trans-identified students know via “common knowledge” that it is impossible for them to learn if there’s someone present who is or has been outspoken in questioning their identity. They’re also well aware that the proper response they and their allies should make when encountering skepticism is to put on masks and bang on noisemakers.
Offhand, I can’t think of any other example of a freely-expressed opinion on a controversial topic which is in itself regularly accused of making people kill themselves.
Liam is a based individual – that is, a grave problem for the esoteric praxis of Transformative Social-Emotional Learning. Liam and his family have been recognized as a source of false consciousness and counterrevolution. I wish Liam and his father best of luck in the coming struggle sessions.
The cinnamon roll looks like E.T.
… anyone? E.T.?
…as in ET go home…
Never seen it myself!
Yes! Re: the cinnamon roll, I thought so too!
I believe other countries have cinnamon rolls of their own.
On the cinnamon roll, I thought so too.
RE, The dispute between Israel and the US on what to do with Iran: Does anyone remember Israel’s daring deed in the apparently now-ancient past? As Bob Dylan summarized it:
“He destroyed a bomb factory/ nobody was glad/ The bombs were meant for him/ He was supposed to feel bad/ He’s the neighborhood bully (Dylan, 1983, “Neighborhood Bully”).
Seems to me that the Tr*mp Administration is not a reliable (or wise) partner. I am not a fan of Netanyahu, but on matters of Israeli security, I’d trust his judgment more than the US.
Ditto Kurt. The Basian priors of this speak for themselves. Remember “ALL EYES ON RAFA” – sadly but obviously retarded female American celebs warning Israel to stay away from Rafa, Gaza: “OHhhh Noooo. Refugeees and viiiiictims! Puppies and kitten-surgeons of Rafa?”
Do you recall Kurt? I do.
Where a few weeks later Sinwar was found and killed. In… Rafa. Hmm.
One doesn’t have to be a Bibi fan to agree with his strategic thinking – as I do here.
Trust Israelis to defend Israel – not Western leaders – or real estate reality stars say – to ensure Israel’s future.
Onwards Israeli Heroes,
D.A.
NYC
Netanyahu and the Israeli leadership are in a tough spot. Ceteris paribus, it may be the right strategic move for the IDF to attack whatever Iranian nuclear sites are accessible (some, deep under ground, probably are not, without the help of the U.S.) But it’s difficult to calculate what might happen if Netanyahu defied Trump and disrupted his ongoing talks with Iran. Trump could pull a Zelensky on Netanyahu and do serious damage. I would probably give Trump some room to negotiate. Then, depending on the outcome, Netanyahu can revisit whether to attack or not.
Norm I think a problem is we’re often looking at these problems and solutions with a 1990s or 2000s lens when the tech is so much more advanced on BOTH sides.
Like Israel’s new laser weapon pushing up Hamas’s attack timetable to earlier, to Oct. 7.
Similarly the ground under Iran today is not the same as the open air shooting gallery of Operation Opera (Israel hitting Iraq’s Osirak reactor) in 1983-ish.
D.A.
NYC
“Universities should continue to be able to do research as long as they’re abiding by the laws and in sync, I think, with the administration and what the administration is trying to accomplish.” Is of course the standard position of any given totalitarian regime, … and a strikingly transparent formulation of it.
Numbers out of the UK for awhile have shown the WILD overrepresentation of self declared “trans women” (aka men) in sex offense arrests.
“Trans” is doing a lot of heavy lifting there – how many defendants “identify” to be let loose into “pussy acres” (aka womens prison) for predatory reasons? Witness that Isla Bryson “woman” rapist in Scotland. We are unsure of the rates of this “prison directed changes of identity” freeloading.
And how many are “genuinely” trans? – whatever the hell that means…
Consider also that sexual paraphilias seldom “travel alone”. They often come comorbid with other (sometimes antisocial) strange habits or preferences. Fair to say MOST mental conditions come with other conditions like anorexia + alcoholism or anxiety, gender dysmorphia + anxiety + other paraphilias, etc.
The truth is hard to obtain here and T.R. Activists actively muddy the waters.
Even some alleged biologists (lookin’ at you Augustin Fuentez you fraud you) play the muddy game. This 2010s+ trans madness has poisoned a lot of stuff – high IQ gay people HATE it b/c it tars them with a bunch of horrible assertions. Note “approval of gay marriage” has decreased 10% in the last five years. This is why.
D.A.
NYC
Not yet 11am and I’m pushing my loudmouth comment quota at WEIT…
But… the visa situation is interesting. I’m a former J-1 visa entry (student, 1993) and I often wondered – also doing immigration law – how our embassies really “weed” out foreign students and visa applicants for dangerous ideas or intentions.
Well turns out they don’t. Yaha Sinwar, had he have wanted to study at NYU (catering? pet grooming? – hehehe) might have been accepted were he not famous already.
Consider thousands of students from every country apply to enter, millions more via tourism. US Embassies have at most a few hundred Americans and locals to administer visa issuance to all foreigners worldwide. It is an impossible task.
Here AI could play an important role. What if they put each applicant through the
AI machine that looks for “Kill the Jews” say, in their insta postings?
As a lawyer I don’t see any problem with this.
Always consider the scale of the problem and that a vanishingly small percentage of prospective students (and immigrants) are terrorist simps. Whom you must catch.
D.A.
NYC
I am naive about the process of evaluating and issuing visas to prospective students, but I guess I always assumed that there has been some scrutiny of exactly these issues already, and I doubt that most people would object to applying such scrutiny. As I understand it, the issue presented by the Trump administration is the wholesale cancelling of all student visas and denial of the right to admit any foreign students in the future. That’s way beyond “a vanishingly small percentage of prospective students” — it’s pretty much everyone…..
You’re right David. On both sides – “clearing” prospective students is a difficult task
– worthy of examination – but the Trump administration’s solution is a terribly misguided and self defeating one. Kicking out all foreign students is the dumbest way to go about this delicate problem.
D.A
NYC
At risk of abusing the privilege, I’ll add a quick note to write that it may be case that the feds already have the data/information that is being demanded of Harvard regarding their international students.
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2025/may/28/donald-trump/Harvard-University-international-students-report/
What’s surprising to me is that transwomen on average are convicted of sexual assault a lot more often than are cis-men…..
Not surprising at all, since transwomen are confined with weaker real women, so they have more opportunities for sexual abuse and rape than cis-men who have only other men to rape and abuse.
“transwomen on average are convicted of sexual assault a lot more often than are cis-men”
I think that’s not quite what the data represent. The authors don’t have data on all “transwomen” in the whole population, they just have data on all incarcerated people. That 32% is (# of “transwomen” with sexual assault convictions) / (# of all incarcerated “transwomen”). To know how often “transwomen” are convicted of sexual assault and compare to how often other males are convicted of sexual assault, you’d need (# of “transwomen” with sexual assault convictions) / (# of all “transwomen” in the whole population).
I’m not sure that follows from the data. I think most of those people were convicted of assault before they “transitioned”. At least that’s what is said in the bit above. Which is why they think many of them are taking advantage of self-identification as “women”; so as to be incarcerated with actual women. Men invading women’s spaces. They may also be attacking other inmates, but I don’t think that’s what the data is about.
I’m not sure what you mean by “confined with weaker real women”. You surely can’t mean in prison, for these are offenses that landed them in jail. Do you mean in “women’s spaces”?
“Transwomen” don’t necessarily have lower testosterone levels than other men. They may not suppress at all, depending on what their body affirmation goals are. Without a lot of plastic surgery and coaching of voice and mannerisms, hormones don’t do all that much for a man except grow breasts and increase risk of diabetes and blood clots. Men who have severe gender dysphoria may feel better with the erectile dysfunction imposed by estrogen and T-suppression, because normal erections remind them they aren’t the female sex they imagine themselves to be. But the men who commit crimes that send them to prison aren’t likely troubled by erections.
T-suppression is now really necessary only for men wanting to compete in those few women’s sports that still require levels of testosterone approaching the normal female values. Most sports, and the prison service, now allow mere self-identification because T-suppression doesn’t ablate the male advantage, so why bother?
Jerry wrote:
But this is not what the data show. It’s not “that transwomen on average are convicted of sexual assault a lot more often than are cis-men.” It’s that among convicted transwomen, the share of those convicted for sexual assault is higher than the same share among convicted men. That’s also what Mike Hart says in his response to comment # 9 here. I agree with him.
Another problem is this: the author of the substack case wrote:
This is simply wrong (that is, the data do not challenge the conventional wisdom) because the author also told us that (bolding added):
If the trans-identifying males only started to claim to identify or started to identify as women after they had committed sexual assaults, well then we should assume that at the time of the sexual assault they had male-level amounts of testosterone circulating in their bodies.
True, these jailhouse statistics aren’t probative and pose more questions — some very interesting! — than answers. I think most people with common sense understand that men arrested or convicted of sexual assault have various incentives to game the system and “come out” as trans. What’s surprising is that more male criminals don’t do this. Maybe it’s considered unmanly in the prison culture: a man whose petition to be locked up in a P4W (as we call them) was denied might be assaulted or murdered by the other male inmates, depending on where he and his particular crime fell on the pecking order. Better just to do your time and not attract unwanted attention from being what’s called a “goof.”
Probably all trans-identified male prisoners really are gamers and shirkers with normal testosterone at the time they committed their offences and forever after. Without a denominator there is no way to know if trans-identified men (T-suppressed or not) are more likely to commit violent crimes than other men. But the over-representation of sexual assault (and non-sexual assault), but not robbery or drug crimes, on the rap sheets of trans prisoners needs explanation. Hypotheses:
1) Trans-ID’d men really do commit sexual assault at higher rates than other men, that is, they are inherently dangerous to women, and incarceration simply reflects this.
2) Men convicted of sexual assault are more likely than other men to seek confinement with women, perhaps hoping for the opportunity to re-offend. This is particularly interesting, because all heterosexual men would have an incentive not to be deprived entirely of contact with women, yet rapists are more likely to get the opportunity. Regardless of cause and effect, a male rapist is a danger in a women’s prison.
3) Prison culture is particularly vindictive toward men with sexual assault convictions, incentivizing “coming out” for protection. This could apply also to non-sexual assault. A man convicted of assaulting a woman, a child, or an elderly/disabled person even without sexual intent might be judged as cowardly. He might feel more incentive to “come out” than a man sent to prison for beating up another man, who would be respected as a tough guy and not one to mess with. Despite his fears of the other men, he is still dangerous to women because of his track record of victim selection.
This poses a conundrum for the activists. They insist that transwomen don’t game the system, any system. We must believe their sincerity and not misgender them by locking them up with men. If they therefore reject Hypotheses 2 & 3, that leaves them obligated to endorse 1: trans-identified men are not only inherently more dangerous to women and weaker people than women are (duh!) but even more dangerous to them than ordinary men are.
But they won’t like that, either.
That’s a good and interesting set of “in house” (in prisons) motivations I hadn’t considered. The actual truth here is so hard to obtain due to the many motivations involved.
D.A.
NYC
Liam’s case went to the Supreme Court, so I have to add one more thought on that :
The telling result of Liam Morrison’s effective counterprotest message – which might well be overheard as A/V techs setup TVs or whatever – is not that Liam was held to and went through a careful universal standard of due process to demonstrate or justify the expression or precise meaning of his message, so as to arrive at the level best resolution of a conflict that every citizen deserves —
— but that the sexualization of children under 18 years of age on a continuous basis in and associated with a school – as if it matters where – needs absolutely none.
Why are those soft bread things called biscuits?? “Biscuit” means “twice cooked”, which refers to the process in which flour-based things were hardened to improve keeping. When recipes were developed to achieve the same in one stage, “biscuit” was reasonably extended to these, but the usage in the USA is irrational.
Where I grew up (Canada) biscuits were always hard.
“Biscuit” means “twice cooked”….
I tempted to refer you to Wittgenstein’s famous statement that meaning is use, and use, meaning. You might as well remind us that “boot” is a kind of shoe, so those irrational Brits who use it for the trunk of their car are even worse than Americans for whom a “biscuit” is not hard. Word origins are often, perhaps usually, not obvious from the meaning words acquire in any speech community.
And you might help us understand what that brief period following a marriage has to do with honey or the moon. Now that’s irrational!
Whataboutery.
I asked a question; is there an answer?
You also made a claim: “…the usage in the USA is irrational.” I’ll skip the whataboutism and note simply that your claim seemed to me to be incorrect and ahistorical.
(But I will add, for those who are interested, that Dan Jurafsky has written a wonderful book on food and language that I highly recommend. I was first drawn to his work on the history of food language by his essay on why the old colonial America song included the line “Stuck a feather in his cap and called it macaroni….” and what that could possibly mean — and the link to maracroons was a nice addition….)
I beg to differ:
https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=honeymoon
Amusing but strictly anecdotal as far as I can tell. It reminds me of the old example of “sincere”, which was often taught as deriving from high quality Roman statuary that was pure stone (usually marble) “without wax” — i.e. sine cere — to fill in flaws. Thus “sincere” was true and authentic…. Turns out to have been a just-so story, and your citation for “honeymoon” seems to have that just-so quality as well.
Barbara’s reference cites usage of long standing, back to 1540 and a literally identical phrase in contemporary French. This is good etymological evidence that it is not a back-formation at all but formed as the month* of sweetness. All else we’d need is literary citation (alas not in Shakespeare, but Genesis 29:27 comes close.) Those who suggest it is a back-formation should come up with an alternative explanation of how such a pretty word came into being, a word which means just what it says on the label.
(*”Moon” is not necessarily a month. The phases of the moon are a week apart, which is what the Biblical reference gets at. But then the ancient Israelites had work to do. They could only spare a newly married man from battle for a week. And of course I’m reading the English Bible, not the Talmud in Hebrew.)
Other accounts suggest that newly weds were fed mead, made of honey, for a month following their wedding. Sounds as good as “a month of sweetness.”
But the larger point is being missed in efforts to describe the trees. The meanings of words in 2025 often bear little obvious relationship to their sources or origins. If you don’t like this example, there are thousands of others. “Biscuit” for Americans means what Americans use it to mean. World origins are often fascinating, but current uses are not “irrational” because of the source or origin is no longer applicable. I have more trouble with “bad” as a synonym for “good”!
Apropos sex and gender issues, I just read that World Boxing has now introducted mandatory sex testing, so that Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting, who both won gold at the Paris Olympics despite doubts about their sex, will now be subject to such tests.
I was wondering what texts and what criteria would be employed, then I read that “all athletes over the age of 18” who wish to participate in competitions it owns or sanctions will “need to undergo a PCR (polymerase chain reaction) genetic test to determine their sex at birth and their eligibility to compete.” (BBC article)